After a longer than usual hiatus CF Webtools is looking yet again for qualified advanced developers. We are looking now for both ColdFusion help and Flex, AIR and Phonegap help. Here's the good news blurb about CF Webtools:

Never Boring - our staff is lively, energetic, positive and usually funny (well... they think they are funny). Among our eclectic group are golfers, motorcycle enthusiasts, belly dancers, photographers, gamers (shocking I know), fencers (as in touche'), rock climbers, fisherman, fireman, musicians, family people, single people (mostly hot), dog people, cat people, PC people and Mac people. We even have the mother of a fashion model. With all that energy it's a wonder we get anything done. But the truth is we all love what we do and we are stronger together than separately.

Professionally Stimulating - Stay with us long enough and you'll work on every version of ColdFusion back to version 5 (or at least you'll hear stories). We have large legacy codebase's that we maintain, as well as pure greenfield projects. We have mobile (lots and lots of mobile), Mura, FW/1, Home Grown, Model Glue, Mach II, Fusebox, ColdBox, and a box of crackers in the break room. We use MS SQL, Oracle, MySQL, and Sybase. We have apps using maps, apps using web services, apps using APIs and API's using our apps. If there's a "way to do a ColdFusion application" we have seen it, done it and probably maintained, refactored it and maybe invented it. So if you are a lover of programming, programming languages and ColdFusion in particular, you will love it here.

Interested in Balance - as noted above we are not looking for developers who are so entrenched in a technical life that they have no time for anything else. Professional developers with high productivity and high aptitude are above all balanced. They love ColdFusion and can't wait to code (most days) but they also love eating out, movies, spending time with their kids, going to the gym, cruises, photography, and vacations. We have found that the developer with a whole life (I mean balanced and full of loving relationships - not the insurance) is the one that fits our staff, communicates well, and thrives here at CFWT.

Fully Remote - If you live and work in the big City, let CF Webtools give you your life back! We offer full time remote work with benefits to developers in the U.S. If you are used to commuting this can put 2 hours back into your life, not to mention finally getting you off of Lipitor.

You might have noticed I'm a little over the top when it comes to my company and staff. But we believe in who we are and we are looking for folks who like it and want to be a part of it.

Here are the soft skills we are looking for.

Take ownership of a problem. This involves continuing to think about solutions and outcomes even when you think it's not your responsibility. Meeting the need and fixing the problem has to be center stage.

Think around all angles of a problem for all possible solutions. This involves considering details within and outside of your expertise moving up and down the tech stack.

Love the tech community as a place to engage and learn. I'm not glib about love. I believe and practice it!

Have evolved skills in an eclectic mix of technologies and like to learn new ones.

Explain technical concepts to non-technical folks. This is a core competency for us. You have to be relational with our customers.

Know how to honor non-technical people for their own skills and expertise. Also a core competency here. If we make fun of end users we are gentle about it. We respect and honor our customers.

Can laugh, chortle, guffaw and otherwise split a gut with a group of insanely funny people - without the need to put anyone down. Actually some of them are mostly just insane, but they all think they are funny.

Are anxious to be a part of a close knit team who encourages and believes in you.

And here are the Tech Skills:

Advanced ColdFusion - note, we will test you. We are looking for folks who know more than syntax on a web page. You should be well versed in the guts of complex ColdFusion application building. Also note, everything you do with regard to the test is being evaluated. That means not just the skills you portray but getting connected to the VPN, using the IDE, the kind of questions you ask and how you respond to feedback.

Advanced Database Skills - I don't mean you need to know how to build, manage and restore DBs. But you should know how to write a complex query and/or a stored procedure for one or more of the "big three" DB platforms.

Some diverse technology skills - we don't necessarily dictate what that is but we are looking for folks with a broad swath of skills. Right now knowing and developing in .NET, doing IOS/Droid development, Phonegap, Flex, AIR, or troubleshooting CF servers and server admin are skills might give you an edge in your application. But if you come to us with several skills that we don't need at the moment you would still be an attractive candidate.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you allow telecommuting? Yes all our development positions are full-time remote positions.

What sort of dev environment can I expect? We are an eclipse shop and rely on SVN, Jenkins, and an agile like approach to development. Having said that, as an outsource development company we frequently integrate with external teams. Yes, Windows and IIS will no doubt be in play for you at times.

What Industries are you working in? We have sites we develop and maintain in the Financial sector (stocks, options, commodities, retirement planning and management etc.), Tax planning, Civil Government, Insurance, Medical, Pharmaceutical, retail sales, real estate, etc. We have a very broad client list.

Will I get to meet the Muse? Of course, but it's probably not all it's cracked up to be.

Do you use frameworks? Yes - all of them all the way back to Fusebox 2. We work on new projects in common frameworks like Coldbox, FW/1 or DI/1, but we also support a host of legacy applications done on custom frameworks or with no framework at all. So get ready for multiple challenges.

We pay a competitive salary and benefits. CF Webtools maintains sites on virtually all ColdFusion and Database platforms with dev and qa servers and full SDLC. Our work is challenging, invigorating, sometimes frustrating, but rarely boring. Our development group is full of witty, interesting, overcommunicating and extremely talented developers. It's a true mentoring community. If that sounds like a place you would like to work (and you meet our high skill-set standards) send your resume to jobs@cfwebtools.com - or contact the Muse directly if you like. Tweet me @cfwebtools or use the "Ask a Muse" link on this blog (I'm easy to find). You can also call 402 408 3733 and ask for Mark or Jason - we'll be thrilled to speak with you about our opportunity. The official job posting may be found on our corporate site at the Job Openings page.

Rant

Not everyone is a good interviewee. That doesn't mean we discard you out of hand. We don't have a checklist of items that immediately cause us to strike you off the list. We expect you to be human. However... you should be an "advanced" developer capable of working with our team in a way that adds value. That means there are certain things that leave a bad taste in our mouth. Because the muse wants everyone to do well, I'm going to give you the keys to the kingdom in the following advice:

What does "Advanced" remote CF developer mean to the Muse and his team at CF Webtools? It means we won't have to hold your hand to:

Deal with hardware - We know that things happen, but we expect you to be able to solve your crashed drive or video card problem on your own.

Deal with VPN and networking - If you don't understand networking, you should get up to speed quickly. You can start by reading the stuff on ColdFusion Muse related to networking. Meanwhile we should never have to "suggest" that you "try pinging" to see what IP address is resolving, or ask you if you are "internal" or "external" to a network.

Deal with web servers and your local environment - Yes we know you are an "Apache" person. Congratulations we are all very proud. Meanwhile, the environment is usually dictated by the client and not by your faith your favorite stack. You should also know and be familiar with IIS. When I say familiar it means you will have installed IIS in at least a local environment, set up ColdFusion within IIS, and developed against it. Customers love windows even if you don't. Frankly, the Muse wonders about this hubbub.

Deal with your soapbox - While we are on the subject, we are really thrilled that you are a "Mac" person. We know it's flashy and sexy and fast and makes you giddy to have a new iWhateverTheLatestIs. However, you will likely be required to work within a windows environment at some point. The Muse, who has 9 or 10 computers including Apple's latest and greatest, likes and uses Windows. You don't get points from me when you elbow me with your inside anti-MS, Pro-Apple jokes, or when you put a dollar sign in Micro$oft. We expect enough maturity from you to realize that your opinion about technology is a very small part of an overall business effort. The same is true of your favorite source control - sometimes we use Git, sometimes SVN, Sometimes something else (it's client dependent).

Deal with your IDE issues - You are expected to know, use and learn CF Builder integrated with SVN or Git. We like integrated team environments. If you have another favorite IDE (sublime or whatever) that's great. You can even use it. But when we work with you we will expect to see CF Builder and we will expect you to be expert at it.

We spend a great deal of time in our "cultural interview" trying to tease out some of these unhelpful attitudes. So be forewarned - we want positive people who like others, like technology and understand the big picture. You now know everything you need to succeed should you choose to apply. Good luck!

I've hired 5 interns so far.My idea is to get them up to my level as quickly as I can and then maybe between the 5 of us we can be one super developer.In the process, I've stumbled upon what I think will be a revolution in education. I'm asking each intern to rate keywords as to whether they're important or not. "Fieldset" is useful, "Frameset" is not.I'm finding that the 80/20 rule applies. That you can 20% of the keywords are useful, or used all the time, while 80% are used less.

I feel that given all the technology we have to learn, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, ColdFusion, SQL Server, bootstrap, etc, then applying the 80/20 rule will save people a tremendous amount of time.